Not long ago, my wife and I took a trip to Memphis. We went for the food, for the music and to see Graceland, the home of the king of rock ’n’ roll.
More important, though, I went to visit the Lorraine Hotel, to see where another king — Martin Luther King Jr. — was shot and killed.
That was an important trip from my perspective. I needed closure. I don’t know about you but part of the America I held sacred died on April 4, 1968. James Earl Ray shot a hole in our collective heart when he shot Dr. King. Thereafter, an awful lot of goodness drained away forever.
Growing up in the North, I was not privy to the racial torment that festered and lingered in the South. I became more aware of it when I joined the Air Force. I was serving in Japan when Dr. King was shot.
Still, half a world away I felt the loss and the emptiness that filled the hearts of so many who viewed him as a man who could assuage the injustices they had known for decades. Black or white, many of my friends felt empty that day.
Hampton Sides, a noted journalist, author and Memphis native, wrote a spellbinding book not long ago about the King Murder entitled Hellhound on His Trail. As luck would have it, Sides was being interviewed for a documentary the day my wife and I visited. Watching Sides do the interview below the window Ray used to shoot Dr. King, I heard someone comment, “Dr. King was a giant. We don’t have giants anymore.”
I have to agree.
A few months later, Bobby Kennedy was murdered, another giant fell and more goodness drained away.
Speed forward nearly 50 years. Many of the headlines we read today could have been written back then. And the questions I ask: Where are the giants? Is there any goodness left? Who will assuage the injustices we see and feel and taste. People are asking that is Paris on this day. Here in America, we ask the same questions.
Wherever you are Dr. King, I hope your message enables some noble young man or woman to step forward and finish the work you started. I still don’t have the closure I sought. Even after visiting Room 306 in the Lorraine Hotel, some bit of goodness seems missing.
Donald Then, a novelist and experienced editor and journalist, is NKyTribune’s literary editor. He will review books written by local authors or those with a Northern Kentucky setting. Reach him at author@djamesthen.com Visit his website at www.djamesthen.com